Cowalinya! Heavy Rare Earths boosts inventory by 468% to 159Mt, sets foundation for ‘long-life rare earth development’

Cowalinya project inferred mineral resource jumps to 159Mt @ 870ppm TREO
MREO jumps to 28% of the mix
Assays show multiple rare earth-rich hits 14km from the resource zone
Maiden exploration target is well-advanced and downstream metallurgical work is in progress to produce product samples

Exploration on just 19% of Heavy Rare Earth’s Cowalinya rare earths project near Esperance, WA, has resulted in a huge 468% increase to resources at grades comparable to some of the best clay-hosted projects in Australia.

Heavy Rare Earth’s Cowalinya project, north of Esperance in WA, is in one of the most impressive emerging clay-hosted rare earth projects in Australia.

It’s at the southeast margin of the granite and greenstone-rich Yilgarn Craton and within the SW-trending Albany-Fraser Orogen, where saprolite layers are known to host high concentrations of rare earths.

Similar in style to the gigantic ion-adsorption, clay-type deposits of southern China and Myanmar – where most of the world’s heavy rare earths are currently produced – Cowalinya is showing that its mineral horizon is flat-lying, extensive and occurs at shallow depths of between 5-54m.

A major milestone

Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) released its bonanza 159Mt @ 870ppm TREO (400ppm TREO-CeO2 cut-off) resource upgrade based on extensive data from a systematic 509-hole, 14.4km AC drilling campaign into Cowalinya’s clay-rich saprolite.

This is a massive jump in size and grade on the maiden resource of 28Mt @ 625ppm TREO at a lower cut-off grade of 300ppm TREO-CeO2.

Importantly, it includes a boost in valuable magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO) from an already sizeable 25% to 28%, the best of any clay-hosted rare earth resource in Australia.

Resource highlights include:

468% increase in resource tonnes to 159Mt
39% increase in TREO grade to 870ppm
690% increase in contained TREO to 138,290t
MREO of 28%

Heavy Rare Earths ASX HRE — The highest-grade TREO thickness shows up in red – and there’s a lot of red in the 19% of the area HRE has explored at Cowalinya. Pic via HRE

“Today we have delivered the first key milestone for our Cowalinya rare earth project, just 13 months since we listed on the ASX,” HRE exec director Richard Brescianini says.

“Mineral resources for Cowalinya now stand at 159Mt, and pleasingly we have seen a 39% grade increase to 870ppm of rare earth oxides.

“We have also intersected thick rare earth-rich horizons in drilling up to 14km from our resource zone and very much look forward to presenting the project’s maiden exploration target in the near future.

“Today’s exceptional result sets a solid foundation in demonstrating the potential for a long-life rare earth development project at Cowalinya.”

A downstream metallurgical program is also in progress to produce mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) product samples for customer engagement.